


Too Late

by vega_voices



Series: Tapestry [1]
Category: Murphy Brown (TV)
Genre: Breast cancer, Cancer, F/M, post breakup, the one that got away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 09:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18258746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: We aren’t together and we haven’t been for years. Don’t start thinking you could have kept it from happening because you’re a big strong journalist who scares away the bullets.





	Too Late

**Title:** Too Late  
**Author:** vegawriters  
**Fandom:** Murphy Brown  
**Pairing:** Murphy Brown/Peter Hunt  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Timeframe:** _Ectomy, Schmectomy_ (Season 10)  
**A/N:** This is very much, obviously, **not** a part of the _Come Rain, Come Shine_ headcanon. But, there are times when “canon” creeps into my head and demands satisfaction for the muses wandering off and fixing the narrative.  
**Disclaimer:** Diane English, Warner Bros, the Powers that Be, they all own this. Not me. However, this is a bit closer to how, say, the revival might play out. So, if they can bring Scott back in season 12, they can totally take Jenny and Corrie as characters.

 **Summary:** _We aren’t together and we haven’t been for years. Don’t start thinking you could have kept it from happening because you’re a big strong journalist who scares away the bullets._

 

This, she hadn’t been expecting. Of all the things, not this. Not him.

It was silly, of course, not to expect him. His contract had been up at CNN and CBS had wooed him back and so even though he wasn’t based in DC, of course he’d be here from time to time. Of course.

The look on his face told her that he felt the same way.

Murphy inhaled, long and hard, staring across the lobby at a man she should have married. At a man she’d let walk out the door. A man who went home now to someone who deserved him. She pretended not to glance at the golden ring on his finger. Instead, she focused on the gray in his hair, the wrinkles around his eyes. It had only been a couple of years, but she’d definitely aged far more than he had. Menopause had not been kind. He at least looked distinguished.

“Hey, Murphy.”

His smile was genuine. Focused. His eyes twinkled with that way of his and she shivered at the flip in her stomach as he reached out a hand to take hers and they kissed each other’s cheeks. He still smelled of Old Spice and musk and just that hint of coffee that had followed him everywhere. The leather jacket was just slightly more worn. His jeans blue now instead of black.

“You look good,” she said, pulling back, ignoring the demon on her shoulder who taunted her, bringing that damn wedding ring into her peripheral vision again. Jenny, she remembered. She was an artist of some kind. Ran a gallery in New York. Only in her loneliest moments did Murphy allow her subconscious to pull up the image of them in People. She was his age, at least. Raven haired. Dark eyes. Three freckles on her left cheek.

She hated herself for knowing that.

“So do you,” he teased. “Though it was surprising to see you pop off of FYI and then back again? What happened? Tell me it was something you stole from the White House.”

She smirked. “Classified information.” Awkward silence. Something they’d never had before. Even the night it had ended, sitting on her couch in that painful moment when they realized the crash and burn had arrived, nothing had been awkward.

She’d really meant it when she’d said yes to him.

She’d meant it and he’d meant it but she’d pushed him out the door for reasons she couldn’t even express anymore and he’d gone to New York to set up a new news division for CNN and met a raven haired artist and married her and now his daughter was six months old.

They’d spoken once or twice over the past few years. At last year’s Humboldt awards, Jenny had been glowing in her pregnancy and Murphy had sat, grinding her teeth, while Miles and Corky teased her about how fat and bloated she’d been with Avery.

For the first time since her diagnosis, she felt the cancer eating at her. Multiplying by the second. Wasting her to nothing right before his eyes.

“What are you doing in town?” She choked out.

“The usual,” he responded. “I’m hungry. You eaten yet?”

She had planned on grabbing something small and going home, eating before Avery descended with homework and his repeated pleas to dye his hair. She needed to tell him. Needed him to know. But know what? That at any moment a father he didn’t know might have to swoop in and take him because some demon she couldn’t see --

She stopped herself.

“Phil's?”

“Perfect.”

It took only moments for them to fall into step together and when his hand moved to the small of her back as they left the building, she almost turned to take his hand. Self-preservation stopped her and she focused on the familiar green awning of the pub.

They found a table at the back, ordered club sandwiches. She forced herself to ask.

“How’s Jenny?”

“She’s so great.”

His enthusiasm was real. There was no hesitation, no catching himself. The smile on his face was one he’d once held for her, and Murphy bit her lip, seeing what she’d given up that night.

She’d really meant it.

If she’d left that damn voicemail, would he have called her back? Would that smile be hers? Even now? With this lump in her breast?

“And the baby? What’s her name again?”

“Corrie,” he said. “Corinne.” And before she could ask, a picture was in her hands of a little girl who was a clone of her mother - at least as far as babies could be.

“She’s beautiful,” Murphy said, handing the photo back. She looked at him and saw him almost ask, so she took pity. “Avery,” she continued, digging in her bag for a picture, “is running circles around everyone at soccer and while he can’t do math, he’s a damn fine history student.” She handed over the newest photo of him in his soccer uniform.

“God, he looks so much like you.”

The catch in Peter’s throat undid her and she hid the rush of emotion behind a gulp of water.

Peter handed the photo back and met her eyes. Murphy waited for the question he was searching to ask. “Does he …” Peter trailed off and looked down at his hands.

“Remember you?” She offered. He glanced up. “Sometimes. He was still so young when you left, but he knows you. He knows we dated.” She paused. “The internet … it’s a dangerous place and he goes on and searches things sometimes so he sees pictures. The last time he did it, I revoked his access for a week but I finally gave him that letter you wrote for him.”

Silence.

“How did he take it?”

Murphy shrugged. “Honestly, I think he feels abandoned by two fathers. But that’s not your fault. I pushed you out the door.”

“I could have stayed. I could have come back.”

Their food arrived. Murphy poked at her fries.

“You wouldn’t have Jenny. Or Corrie.”

“No. But I’d have you and Avery. Life isn’t either or, Murphy. It’s just a different path.”

The ketchup burped onto the fries and Murphy busied herself licking her fingers and pulling a piece of bacon from the sandwich. Peter did the same. They ate in silence, the questions swirling between them, and she needed to say something before she did what she’d always done with him and blurted out the darkest of truths.

He didn’t say anything. He knew her. He was waiting.

She put down the bacon, looked at him, and confessed.

***

“Peter,” she said, her voice pitched low to keep the patrons from hearing, “I have cancer.”

His heart stopped. He felt it skip a beat and then race to catch up. He felt his face and chest flush with pressure and his hand started to shake. Of all the sentences he expected to come from her, this was truly the very last one.

“What?”

“Cancer. I have breast cancer.”

He could hear the tone in her voice, the questions she was still asking herself. He could hear the fear. The terror. The uncertainty.

“Is it …”

“My prognosis is good at the moment. It wasn’t caught early but it isn’t too late, either.”

How could this be the thing? Them, sitting here, fries and bacon between them, her telling him that she had cancer like the Bullets were playing tonight. This wasn’t just a Tuesday.

She had cancer.

Peter froze. Once, he’d have held her. But once, he’d have been there. Holding her hand while her doctor talked to her. He’d have taken Avery out to the gym and they’d have shot hoops while they talked about what it all meant. He’d have argued with her about her doing it all herself.

He’d have been there.

Once. Before they sat on her couch, hand in hand, and knew that what they had was over. He loved Jenny. He worshiped his daughter. But not for the first time since he’d closed that door, he wished he’d walked right back through, kissed the hell out of her, and dragged her down to the nearest judge they could rouse.

“Don’t start,” she said.

“What?”

“What you’re doing,” she countered. “We aren’t together and we haven’t been for years. Don’t start thinking you could have kept it from happening because you’re a big strong journalist who scares away the bullets.”

“Not all the bullets.”

Silence.

“Really, Murphy. Are you okay? Is Avery?”

“He doesn’t know yet.”

“What?” He somehow wasn’t surprised.

“It’s still early,” Murphy reminded him. “Once I decide my course of treatment, then he gets to know.”

“And what about Jake?”

Silence. Hard, painful silence.

“And what?” She finally said. “Give my broken hearted son his absent father just in case I die?”

“Well …”

Murphy shrugged. “It’s a moot point, Peter. This is treatable. It’s going to suck. But, it’s treatable.”

He stared at his fries, wanting to do what he once would have done. Wanting to slide into her side of the booth, wrap his arms around her, press a kiss to her temple and tell her it was going to be okay and that she didn’t have to do it alone. That Avery didn’t have to face it alone.

“I’m sorry,” he said, searching for words, for comfort, for some kind of anything to make things make more sense.

“Me too.” She pushed her plate away.

It wasn’t how he expected the reunion to go but then again, what did he expect? Her to laugh and toss her hair and tease him into almost forgetting the wedding band on his finger? They’d broken each other’s hearts in the worst possible way. After all, for them, the world hadn’t ended with a bang. It had been the softest of whispers and the lock of a door clicking into place.

“Murphy …” He couldn’t help himself.

“Don’t.” She raised her head and those damn indigo eyes met his. He stared at her, at the cheekbones highlighted by the shorter haircut, the added wrinkles around her eyes, the golden earrings that caught the light. She was still just about the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. “Don’t go down the road you’re going down.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re in love with a beautiful woman and you have a beautiful daughter and anything else is just stupid. We just ended up on a different path.” Her clear voice cut through him and he took a deep breath and nodded. She was right. It hurt, but she was right. “But.” She put cash for both of their meals on the table, which worried Peter more than anything else. “But. I won’t pretend that sitting here with you doesn’t make me accept that not marrying you was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.” She quirked a sad half-smile. “And I’ve done some pretty dumb things.”

He reached across the table for her hand and she took it, lacing their fingers. For a long moment, Peter sat there, counting his heartbeats, before she squeezed his hands, pulled back, and slid out of the booth. “See you around, Petey.”

Somehow, he choked out his response. “Good luck, Murphy.”

“Thanks.”

He watched her shoulder her bag and walk out, never looking back. Everything in him wanted to run after her, to grab her around the waist and pull her back to him. He wanted to take her back to his hotel room and make love to her and beg Jenny for forgiveness later. But what happened then? And would he feel this way if she hadn’t told him about the cancer?

Slowly, he slid out of the booth and made his way to the door, half expecting to see Murphy out on the street, leaning against the Porsche she’d never let him drive. Instead, all he saw were the suits of DC. Peter took a breath, shook his head, and made his way to the nearest Metro station and back to the hotel. He’d call Jenny and check on Corrie. He had to get used to running into Murphy again. He had to leave her behind. She wasn’t his life anymore.

***

Phil’s again. Phil’s always. But it was comfortable and right now she needed comfortable. Even if she made a point to ignore the corner booth where she had sat with Peter last night. She’d recognized the look on his face. What would have happened if she’d given in? If she’d followed him back to his hotel? If she’d fallen into that familiar pattern of lips on skin and hands on body? She’d been the other woman before, on and off, never intentionally. Waking up after a drunken night to discover her partner sliding a wedding ring back on his finger. She didn’t want to think she could seek and destroy the trust in someone’s relationship, but she’d spent far too much time thinking about it with Peter.

But if she had, she’d never have known if it was a pity fuck or if he truly wanted to take her in his arms.

So now, she sat, giggling along with Corky and Kay’s taunting about boobs and how they used them to get what they wanted. She appreciated their joking in the face of Frank’s eternal worry and Jim’s silence. She needed some sense of levity. She needed to stop focusing on Peter’s face, his eyes as he glanced at her breasts, his teeth worrying his lip. She was tired of being alone, but she’d accepted it. At least until she’d laid eyes on that familiar build and looked into eyes that still had the power to sweep her away. She couldn’t lie - if he divorced Jenny and showed up on her doorstep, she wouldn’t turn him away.

Instead, she voiced the truth she had to face. It wasn’t like she was holding onto her breasts for vanity, or for a man. It wasn’t like she was ever going to get married. She’d had that chance, once, and it wasn’t like she had other choices out there. Nope, it was her and Frank and Avery, sailing into the future.

So why did it hurt so much?

Why now? Why today?

If she had the mastectomy, was she giving up? Was she admitting her breasts - as small as they were - were an exercise in vanity? If she had the lumpectomy, did it mean she was giving into vanity?

The last time anyone other than her had touched them had been the last time Peter had been home before the breakup. They’d chased each other up the stairs, into what was soon to be their bedroom, and spent the night exploring each other in ways that were new but familiar all at the same time. He’d teased her, saying he wasn’t taking her name, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. He was an independent man and she needed to recognize that. But, when she’d taken him in her mouth, he’d almost changed his mind.

Since that night, she’d barely touched herself. She’d felt her drive slipping from her, fading off into some realm that other women seemed to avoid. But hot flashes and night sweats had hardly made her feel sexy.

She glanced down at her shirt, the curve under it.

No, the lumpectomy wasn’t about vanity. It was less invasive. It was an easier healing process. It didn’t mean buying new bras. It kept things simple. Clean. She needed that. The mastectomy meant people would always look at her with that terror in their eyes. With the look Peter had given her last night. Not quite pity, but hardly confidence.

Yes. The lumpectomy.

She took a breath, forced a smile to her face, and looked at the server who was asking if she wanted anything else. No. Just the check. And some air. To get away from everyone right now. She had a story to do and nothing - not cancer or old lovers - would distract her.

Still, when she gathered her bag and said goodbye to Kay and Corky and stepped out onto the DC street, she couldn’t help but hope she’d see Peter standing there, hand out, with a promise he’d help her through this. Instead, she saw Orin Hatch talking to Ted Kennedy.

Life went on.

She had a story to do.

It was too late for her and Peter.


End file.
